I think it would be really useful if we had a way of starting a thread/topic based on a photo in the image gallery (or playa artifacts). These threads could go into some sort of "image talk" subforum and at the top of each thread/topic, the image that is being discussed could be displayed. The image gallery could then be updated to contain "read discussions about this photo" or "start a discussion about this photo" links.

This would allow people to attach their thoughts, memories, feelings, or other info to a photo, it would give those who view the photos more context about that they are seeing, and it would provide a springboard for all sorts of interesting discussions. Together, this would encourage and allow the community to express and share experiences, rather than just photos or discussions.

There is already talk amongst the web team to do this. We just need to come up with an elegant solution to make it work

Ostensibly, you'd want the system to be smart enough to have a "discuss this image" link to go to the eplaya. They would then have to start the thread with a new post.

Once a new post was created, the system would have to be able to recognize that and change the link to "discuss this image" to the thread itself - rather than post a reply, becuse folks can't see the whole conversation in bottom frame of the post reply window if it exceeds one page worth of postings.

We also want to provide contextual linking from various articles on the website, as well as the image gallery.

Both the discussion boards and the image gallery are done in php, so we'd need to discuss this further with a solid php guru to determine its feasibility.

FWIW, there's nothing preventing Gadget from initiating threads based on such a model, in an appropriate topic area related to the image of choice. And it might help to put in some effort as a more active eplaya participant, firstly.